English football has amassed debts of around three billion pounds ($5.2 billion) at all levels of the game and a top club could fold in the current financial climate, English FA chairman David Triesman said on Tuesday.

Triesman told a conference of soccer business leaders that the figure was based on information supplied by sources in the City of London and was the most reliable and up-to-date estimate available.

"The best estimate I could get in the City yesterday was that debts in English football as a whole have probably edged to the 3,000 million pounds mark," he said in the opening keynote speech at the two-day conference at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge ground.

Photograph: Liverpool football Club owners George Gillett (L) and Tom Hicks pose for photographs with a team scarf at the Anfield stadium/ PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images